Life Hacks

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Android Manifest file is at the heart of the (structure of) android
app. If you do not pay attention to androidmanifest.xml file and its
role, you will not be able to design and develop your app and further
you will not be able to reuse the platform and its services.
To put it succinctly, the Android Manifest file lists out all the
modules of your android application. The platform (android) regulates
the life cycle of your app using intent, intent filters, activities,
content providers, intent receivers, your app’s permissions and even
instrumentation (enterprise enablement) for your app using the manifest
file

Every Android application must have an AndroidManifest.xml file. The manifest presents essential information about
the application to the Android system, information the system must have before
it can run any of the application's code. Among other things, the manifest
does the following:

It names the Java package for the application.
The package name serves as a unique identifier for the application.

It describes the components of the application — the activities,
services, broadcast receivers, and content providers that the application is
composed of. It names the classes that implement each of the components and
publishes their capabilities (for example, which Intent messages they can handle). These declarations let the Android system
know what the components are and under what conditions they can be launched.

It determines which processes will host application components.

It declares which permissions the application must have in order to
access protected parts of the API and interact with other applications.

It also declares the permissions that others are required to have in
order to interact with the application's components.

It lists the Instrumentation classes that provide
profiling and other information as the application is running. These declarations
are present in the manifest only while the application is being developed and
tested; they're removed before the application is published.

It declares the minimum level of the Android API that the application
requires.

It lists the libraries that the application must be linked against.

Elements of manifest File:

All the elements that can appear in the manifest file are listed below . These are the elements that you can add in manifest file ; you cannot
add your own elements or attributes.

When I joined Samsung as an Engineer I had many questions in my mind that generally a fresh college graduate have, I was fresh graduate too. I had to work with android and thought were going in my mind "How will learn android"," Will I able to develop good android apps", and many more.

gradually I go on learning, trying, doing mistakes and able to develop my first android app which has been published on play and got 1000+ downloads in first 10 days.

So you will be thinking

.
.
.

what is the best way to learn android ?

Learning programming is much different that learning other subjects where we just read books keeping a pen and marker with us , making notes side by side, highlighting important lines .

Programming is learned by doing(and by just reading the theory and code) , and android so.

I have experienced this that whatever you read do it. Once you do , you will learn and enjoy.

Learning android and developing apps in android is always enjoying.

Trying , doing mistakes, reading again , goggling, will make you a good android developer .

I will advise you have a good book or eBook of android to consult when you need.